CR-5000 System Designer

System Designer is the design creation part of  CR-5000, Zuken's enterprise-wide design solution for the development of advanced electronic products. System Designer is a graphical tool for design capture and analysis. It supports a wide range of graphical and textual design entry methods and is suited to digital, analog, and mixed signal circuit design at both the system and the PCB level. The tool is tightly linked to synthesis, simulation, timing analysis, verification, and debugging throughout the design process. The design entry methodology is developed to reduce design time, minimize product cost and size, and improve product quality.

Benefits

  • Easy-to-use, powerful user interface to maximize productivity
  • Effective library integration and part assignment to improve design quality
  • Interactive DRC enables effective checking to cut design iterations
  • Design errors are highlighted early in the process
  • Design re-use prevents unnecessary repetition of design work and enables proven circuit elements to be re-used, improving design quality
  • Design partitioning enables simultaneous work on different parts of the circuit - in any location
  • Integrated RF technology meets the demands of today's high-speed analog and digital designs
  • Parallel use of generic- and part-driven design means that System Designer combines the benefits of using traditional paper-based design drawings with those of tool-based schematic entry - particularly helpful for simulation
  • Global editing of component and net attributes using the spreadsheet editor saves time and ensures consistency of schematic data throughout their use

Integration with Physical Design Solution

System Designer is most effective when vertically integrated with CR-5000 Board Designer. The same Design File Manager is used for both tools and data sharing allows for bi-directional integration. In addition, EMC-related attributes set in System Designer can be carried over to Board Designer. By using System Designer with Lightning, topology data can be edited from the schematic. System Designer is also tightly integrated with Floor Planner, a variety of automatic and semi-automatic tools and a facility to commence board design before finalizing which components will be used. Design partitioning and parallel design are both fully supported, as is design re-use with integrated schematic and board data. When the schematic and the board are designed in parallel, minimum data can be back-annotated in order to maintain consistency with System Designer. An optional Components Manager allows for unified management of component data and test data is back-annotated into the schematic.

Integration with High-Speed Design Solution

CR-5000 Lightning is built upon five key concepts, combining unique technology for effective handling of complex design information, constraint and analysis engine unification, process orientation, and frontloaded verification.

Integration with Lightning Scenario enables 'what-if' experimentation at the schematic design stage along with the ability to run preliminary transmission line simulations, topology editing and constraints setting in Floor Planner. Topologies can be registered in libraries for re-use and the tool can register and set properties for the parts that form the topologies. The Constraint Manager can be displayed and edited in an Excel-like table in which the data can be sorted for each component type. The completed topology can be exported as a rule file and then forwarded to Board Designer as layout rules. A field solver enables calculation of characteristic impedance and transmission delay taking into account the shape and materials of transmission lines. This is not limited to text editing, but allows shapes to be input and immediately checked. Based on the defined topology rules, waveform analysis can be performed using the simulator in Lightning Scenario to verify the rules.

Design Rule Checking

A wealth of DRC, ERC and checking functions include reference designator redundancy, net name redundancy, and contact and source/ground short checks. Missing property input, etc. is identified and reported, while clicking on an error report highlights the item in error on the schematic, allowing for visual verification.

Hierarchical Design Capabilities

System Designer enables engineers to create, expand, and share hierarchical blocks on the schematic. Various block shapes can be automatically generated from pin data, and by using Component Designer, multi-pin block symbols can easily be re-used for hierarchical design. The blocks can either be pushed down onto underlying circuits or complete schematics, or partial schematics can be cut out and used for bottom-up hierarchy creation. Portions of flat schematic diagrams can also be cut out and used for the creation of circuit blocks or hierarchies.

For more information on each of these areas please refer to the CR-5000 System Designer datasheet.